Son of Agreed Framework

by Gordon Prather

On 29 November 1990, the United Nations Security
Council authorized "Member States co-operating with Government of Kuwait"
to "use all necessary means" to compel Iraq "to withdraw all
its forces to the positions in which they were located on August 1, 1990."

It then took about three months for a coalition of Member States – led by Bush the Elder – to accomplish what the Security Council had authorized.

Of course – even then – there were neo-crazies in and out of our government
hell-bent on establishing an American Hegemony. They wanted to ignore the Security
Council and the UN Charter, to keep going to Baghdad, to depose Saddam Hussein
and hang him from a sour-apple tree.

But Bush the Elder would have none of it.

Even worse for the neo-crazies, on September 27, 1991, Bush the Elder announced
that the United States would unilaterally withdraw all land-based
tactical nuclear weapons from our overseas bases and all sea-based tactical
nuclear weapons from our ships and submarines.

Approximately 100 of our nuclear weapons had been based in South Korea, and many more were aboard our ships and submarines making port there.

On December 31, 1991 – as a direct result of President Bush's decision to
withdraw our nukes from South Korea and from warships off-shore – President
Roh Tae Woo and Premier Kim Il Sung signed the Joint
Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsulaunder
which, both countries agreed not to "test, manufacture, produce, receive,
possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons," or even to "possess nuclear
reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities."

However, we kept our land-sea-air bases in South Korea and have continued to
this day to conduct twice-yearly "exercises" of our Korean "contingency plan."

In 1994, in part because of those twice-yearly exercises, which may have involved
the possible use of nukes, the North Koreans threatened to withdraw from the
Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to be free to develop nukes
of their own.

There resulted the Clinton-negotiated Agreed
Framework of 1994, under which North Korea – aka the Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea – agreed to not only remain a NPT-signatory, but to "freeze"
its plutonium-producing reactors and related facilities and to "eventually
dismantle these reactors and related facilities."

What did the DPRK want in return?

"The US will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the US."

Furthermore;

"1) Within three months of the date of this Document, both sides will
reduce barriers to trade and investment, including restrictions on telecommunications
services and financial transactions.

"2) Each side will open a liaison office in the other’s capital following
resolution of consular and other technical issues through expert level discussions.

"3) As progress is made on issues of concern to each side, the U.S. and
the DPRK will upgrade bilateral relations to the Ambassadorial level."

But then Bush the Younger became President and almost immediately repudiated
Clinton’s efforts to implement the Agreed Framework, telling South Korea’s president
and North Korean emissaries he had no intentions of normalizing relations with
North Korea.

In his first State of the Union Address – after specifically naming Iran, Iraq and North Korea – Bush the Younger had this to say:

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.

"In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

"I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

Nine months later the Bush administration unilaterally abrogated the Agreed Framework, charging that North Korea had a secret enriched-uranium nuke program.

No longer subject to the Agreed Framework, North Korea announced on the eve of Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq that it was withdrawing from the NPT, restarting its "frozen" plutonium-producing reactor and its plutonium-recovery facility and – according to CIA estimates – now has a dozen or so plutonium implosion-type nukes.

Now, back in 1994, neither Russia or China were the powerhouses they have since become, so President Clinton was allowed to deal one-on-one with North Korea.

But after Bush the Younger deliberately precipitated the withdrawal from the
NPT – and subsequent development of nuclear weapons – by their next-door neighbor,
North Korea, the Russians and Chinese decided to do something about the mess
Bush made.

Hence, the Six-Party (China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and US)
talks.

"The Six Parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the Six-Party
Talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful
manner.

"The DPRK committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear
programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.

"The United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean
Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or
conventional weapons.

"The ROK [South Korea] reaffirmed its commitment not to receive or deploy
nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization
of the Korean Peninsula, while affirming that there exist no nuclear weapons
within its territory."

The Third Round of the Fifth Six-Party talks on implementing that Joint Statement
have just concluded in Beijing, wherein the parties agreed
to take, inter alia, the following actions in parallel in the initial
phase:

"The DPRK will shut down and seal for the purpose of the eventual abandonment
the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility and invite
back IAEA personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and verification as
agreed between the IAEA and the DPRK.

"The DPRK and the U.S. will start bilateral talks aimed at resolving bilateral
issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations. The U.S. will begin the
process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism,
and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the
Enemy Act with respect with the DPRK."

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

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